More Highlights for WRAL Studio

Sunday night, January 28, 2001 was a big night for WRAL-TV. Not only did the station broadcast both the SuperBowl XXXV in HD and the premiere of Survivor II: The Australian Outback, WRAL opened the doors on its new all-digital newsroom. The 11 o’clock newscast unveiled its state of the art, all-digital studio.

With this newscast WRAL became the world’s first news operation to gather and present high definition local news on a continuous basis. At that time, John Harris, WRAL’s Director of Special Projects, said, “The 11:00pm newscast will mark our move into the new facility, so it’s the official start of the new era.”

Everything from the furniture to the state-of-the-art set changed for WRAL in the new 24,000 square foot all-digital facility, part of a building expansion project started in 1998. The studio cameras and the field cameras were brand new, 89 pieces of Panasonic DVCPRO HD equipment in all. The Devlin Group in San Diego, who created the cutting-edge design for WRAL, featured the station’s new virtual set on their website.

At that time, WRAL-TV Vice President and General Manager Bill Peterson said, “This conversion to HD has, quite frankly, never been done before. Virtually every piece of equipment we use in putting together a newscast… has completely changed. What viewers will see, even those with standard sets, is truly one-of-a-kind news operation. They’ll see a clearer picture, more detail and a greatly enhanced newsroom designed to function at the highest possible standard.”

WRAL News continues to broadcast its award winning newscast from this space. The news set undergoes updates as the need arises.

Take a look behind the scenes when 2003 American Idol finalist, Clay Aiken, made a whirlwind trip from Hollywood to his hometown of Raleigh during the final weeks of competition of the hit FOX TV show American Idol. Clay finished as the runner-up to champion Ruben Studdard.

This video shows Clay arriving at WRAL-TV the morning of Friday, May 9 2003. He makes his way into the station greeting employees as he makes his way to the newsroom . You’ll see and hear Clay interviewed by WRAL Morning news anchors.

All the video was shot from a news photographer shooting from behind-the-scenes. Enjoy this unique look of what happens during a live newscast as Clay Aiken has fun “helping” Mike Maze present the weather report and Mark Roberts with his traffic report.

September 11, 2001 changed the way the United States went about the task of protecting the nation for harm. Terrorists, with ease, inflicted death and destruction in New York City and Washington D.C. One year later, WRAL asked the question – how safe are we?

WRAL News anchor David Crabtree and The News & Observer newspaper executive editor Melanie Sill posed the question to experts representing various roles in law enforcement and the military, plus those who hold positions in education and religion.

Sparks was a WRAL-TV locally-produced childrens program that premiered August 10, 1985. The program was produced by Peter Anlyan and featured Meredith Nicholson (foreground(, Kent FAulcon, Mark Miller, Mark Kath, Phyllis Bullock and Joshua Lozoff.

Related Highlights

Capitol Broadcasting Company, Inc. is a diversified communications company founded in 1937. This website has two primary missions – to preserve CBC’s rich history and to make it accessible to the public.